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Hurricane director: 7-day forecast wouldn’t always help

ORLANDO — A seven-day hurricane forecast is a great thing, and might be on the way, but it doesn’t do any good if a storm comes to life just off the coast and then comes ashore five days later, the head of the National Hurricane Center said Tuesday.

A 7-day forecast wouldn’t have helped in 2007, when Humberto went from barely a system to a full-blown hurricane in 24 hours and hit Texas two days later.

And four days before slamming South Florida 20 years ago this summer, the historic Hurricane Andrew had weakened from a tropical storm to a “disorganized system” threatening to dissipate altogether. Two days after that, it had grown overnight into a monster storm.

While this week’s convention is in the first state that comes to mind when most people think of hurricanes, Florida now has gone six years without a hurricane landfall, and didn’t even get a tropical storm in 2011.

“And believe me, every time I say that, I knock on wood, knowing our time will come,” Florida Emergency Management Director Bryan Koon told the conference.

“Every year we go without one you risk a little more complacency from your citizens,” Koon said. “We have a lot more citizens since 2006. We have people coming to the state every day who do not know how bad a hurricane can be.”

Instead of Florida, Irene threatened a catastrophic strike on the heavily populated New York and New England.

“How many people are from the Northeast? Welcome. You just thought it was a southern thing, didn’t you?” Federal Emergency Management Agency Director — and former Florida emergency management director — Craig Fugate quipped, drawing laughs.

When Irene did strike New York, it was as a much weaker storm than had been predicted, the hurricane center’s Read said.

In fact, two days before landfall, forecasts projected Irene’s top sustained winds at between 60 and 100 mph; they topped out at 50.

Hurricane forecasters and researchers have for years conceded that, while they’ve made tremendous strides in track forecasts, they’re way behind in predicting changes in strength.

In 2011, the hurricane center broke all time accuracy records for forecasts at 24, 36, 48 and 72 hours. And its error at three days now is where it was at one day, Read said.

While Irene was angling toward the U.S. east coast, the spot-on forecasts several days out meant no part of Florida, Georgia or South Carolina had to be evacuated, Read said. Emergency managers have said every mile of coastline evacuated can cost as much as $1 million.

Instead, Irene brought less expected hazards. Nearly one million people in Rhode Island and Connecticut lost power, some for more than a week. And there was intensive inland flooding; Read said many people surveyed “had no idea” that could happen.

“Where was the national focus for Irene?” Fugate asked. “It was on the coast. They’re so conditioned that storm surge was going to be the big impact. We tend to take a step back and say, ‘we werent expecting this.’ Why not?”